Module 1 Assignment: Applying Leadership to Enable Staff Achievement

Photo Credit: Getty Images/Hero Images

The healthcare industry is dynamic. Every patient is different. Every situation is different. A good healthcare leader must be able to address situations as they arise and make decisions accordingly. Consider the leadership styles that would be especially helpful in this scenario:

You recently accepted the nurse manager position of a busy emergency department (ED) in a new organization that had 100,000 ED visits last year. These visits represent a 10% increase over the previous year. To meet the needs for staffing required for this sudden growth, the prior nurse manager hired 10 new nursing graduates and 10 nurse travelers that arrived on the unit a few weeks before you came. The breakdown in level of tenure and experience in your staff is: 25% highly tenured in this ED and experienced in this specialty; 25% tenured within the organization and proficient in this specialty; and 30% less than 2 years in the ED/organization and competent in this specialty. The remaining 20% of your staff are the experienced ED nurse travelers and inexperienced new nurses, both groups that are new to the organization.

One of your first new responsibilities as the ED nurse manager is to provide unit-based leadership for the implementation of a new patient tracking system that offers more functionality than the previous tracking system used by this ED for the past 7 years. During the hiring process, you learned that the organization was going to implement this new patient tracking system, and you shared that you had experience in implementing the same system in your previous job.

To prepare:

• Review the Resources.
• Search the Walden Library or other reputable academic/professional sources on the Internet and locate a peer-reviewed article related to situational leadership.
• Consider your own leadership style from the Clifton Strengths Signature Theme Report in relation to the needs of the staff in the scenario.

Assignment (5 pages – not including title page and reference page):

Write a paper in which you demonstrate how you, as the leader in the case example provided, would address the following:

• Explain how you would provide leadership for the implementation of the new system. Include a description of the leadership behaviors that would be most effective to position your staff for success based on their experience and needs.
• Explain how this implementation plan relates to your Clifton Strengths Signature Theme Report, including how this leadership situation aligns with or differs from your leadership profile.
• Explain your rationale for your choices and appropriately reference literature that supports your thinking.
• Explain how being able to successfully implement situational leadership better positions you to advocate for social change within your new organization on behalf of the patient population served.